This invention relates to a Yard Caddy adaptable for use with tubular-shaped spools of crochet thread, cone-shaped spools of thread, skeins of yarn, and with hanks of thread.
For many years crochet thread has been available on tubular shaped spools and on cone-shaped spools and, unless secured in some manner, such spools tend to tip over and roll about, becoming tangled and soiled. Problems also exist with skeins of yarn, which have no center support or spool on which it is wound, it being necessary to either hand-wind the skein into a ball, which ball tends to roll about, getting tangled and soiled, or having to pull the yarn a few feet at a time as it is used, from the center of the skein which is tiring and time consuming.
Many forms of restraint have been tried in an effort to control the thread, whose most commonly used being brown paper bags, bowls, large coke bottles, and gallon-size plastic bleach bottles, any one of which is unsightly, unhandy, and a source of embarrassment to the user.
Thread dispensers have been invented which will restrain spools of crochet thread but most are designed to handle only the tubular spool and cannot be adapted to use with the cone-type spool or with skeins of yarn. U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,711, issued to Luther W. Tripp, Sept. 12, 1978, is designed specifically to dispense yarn from skeins, but it will not adapt to spools to crochet thread of either the tubular or cone-shaped type spool.
There is also an invention onto which skeins of yarn and hanks of thread may be wound and dispensed, referring specifically to U.S. Pat. No. 3,637,150, issued Jan. 25, 1972, to Darrell G. Butz, but because of its physical structure, it is limited to yarn and hank-type thread.
Most existing dispensers have a complicated rotational system involving the use of ball or roller bearings in the base, making them expensive to manufacture and because of the added weight, expensive to ship.